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Camcorder Wish List

Jan 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By D. W. Leitner

Filmmaker D.W. Leitner has been lobbying for camcorder features for decades and seen nearly all of them become reality.

In October 1989, as a contributing editor to Millimeter magazine, I went on the record with a wish list of six camcorder wants:

1. Cine-quality, high aperture “prime” lenses; especially wide-angle.
2. Bellows-type matte boxes for flair control.
3. Extendable viewfinders for tripod and dolly work.
4. Viewing capability from the other side of the camera, like a 16mm Aaton or Arriflex SR.
5. A red “record” indicator lamp hard against, even superimposed on, the viewfinder image.
6. Superimposed safe action and safe title guidelines as switchable options in all cameras.

Twelve years later in 2002, I crossed off numbers one, two, three, and six, and started a second wish list.

(By NAB 2003, Filmtechnik Alfred Chrosziel of Munich had introduced a modified mount for Sony's 2.7in. LCD color HD viewfinder, the HDVF-C30W, which provided viewing from either side of a Sony F750 or F900. And a red record indication superimposed over the viewfinder image is now common in color viewfinders, most recently JVC's GY-HD100, and Sony's HVR-Z1 and HVR-A1. So I have retired the original 1989 wish list. For the full text of the 1989 and 2002 wish lists, visit www.millimeter.com/mag/wishlist.)

Here's the 2002 wish list:

1. Color viewfinders.
2. Eliminate overscan in “consumer” viewfinders.
3. Bring back a focus confidence indicator in the viewfinder.
4. Waveform display in viewfinder or viewing screen.
5. True SMPTE color bars from all camcorders.
6. Native 16:9 chips in 1/3in. CCD camcorders like Canon's XL1S or Sony's DSR-PD150.
7. FireWire outputs on all camcorders or portable downconverters.
8. Flip-out screens on all camcorders, including HDCAMs.
9. At-a-glance display of camera setup in flip-out screen.
10. Total control and display of all parameters and functions via remote laptop.

In my related 2002 article, I wrote, “I know I'm dreaming, but this is a wish list. Remember, folks, camcorders are image computers. They can do anything computers can do.”

This is ever more true today. So, to paraphrase former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who was still mayor when I wrote the first wish list, “How're we doing?” Let's look at this year's HDV camcorders and compare their features to those on my 2002 wish list.

I'd like to pay particular attention to Sony's midget A1, based on the consumer HDR-HC1. Keep in mind that many professional camcorder features — CCDs, integrated camcorder bodies, flip-out LCD screens, superimposed viewfinder data, auto-tracking of white balance, color viewfinders, optical and electronic image stabilization, stereo mics, lithium ion batteries, 1/4in. videotape, DV compression, FireWire — first appeared in consumer camcorders.

1. Color viewfinders

   Sharp, accurate color viewfinders are upon us, finally, and I'm happy as a pig in slop. I hated black-and-white sensory deprivation — even Ansel Adams used a color finder.

   Like all HDV camcorders, the Sony's A1 has a terrific viewfinder with 250,000 pixels, just like the Z1. This is sharper than any MiniDV viewfinder.

   Color viewfinders, like all things electronic, will only improve. Inventor Jeff Kreines has already demonstrated a silky-smooth OLED viewfinder image in his Kinetta prototype. And there's impressive technology out there: Remember those HD color viewfinders for HDCAM F900s that debuted at NAB two years ago? Sony's 2.7in. LCD viewfinder, the HDVF-C30W, delivers 518,400 pixels. The tiny 0.8in. LCoS chip in AccuScene's viewfinder delivers a whopping 921,600 pixels. That's 1280×720, a pixel-to-pixel match for 720p recording.

   As miniaturized hi-res video displays evolve for the mass market, perhaps inspired by Apple's video iPod and cellphone IPTV, expect to see a handful of new technologies lend themselves to color viewfinders. There's really no place to go but up — way up.



Ikegami’s Editcam HD camcorder will debut at NAB. Recording to FieldPak2 portable hard drives, the camcorder uses Avid’s DNxHD open source codec to capture full raster (1920x1080) images and features a touchscreen GUI.
—D.O.

2. Eliminate overscan in “consumer” viewfinders

   “Let's be done once and for all with this legacy of early NTSC unreliability,” I wrote in 2002.

   Given the volume of imagery destined for computer screens these days, nonlinear editing included, isn't it reasonable to expect “professional” camcorders to be able to display a full scan in the viewfinder and LCD? To offer up all pixels for inspection? Who really wants to discover a fuzzy microphone wind sock outside “safe action” when video is streamed on the Internet?

   Pro monitors have had this capability for years, unfortunately mislabeled “underscan.” There's nothing under about it. It's simply the full scan, without cropping. Kudos to Sony for providing All Scan Monitoring in both the Z1 and A1, a menu option that displays a full scan in the viewfinder or LCD. Although, curiously, it's available only in 1080i mode and surrounded with a black frame. (Who died?)

   Panasonic walks away with honors here. The company's AG-DVX100B upgrade in October acquired true full-frame viewing in both viewfinder and LCD. Panasonic's new DVCPRO HD AG-HVX200 shares this capability.



The LCD viewfinder in Panasonic’s DVCPRO HD AG-HVX200 provides a thumbnail view for easy searching and shot file information.

Spec’d for location production, the lightweight 8.4in. Panasonic BT-LH900 SD and HD LCD monitor offers built-in waveform monitoring, and a separate control panel, and it can be powered by an Anton Bauer battery.
—D.O.

3. Bring back a focus confidence indicator in the viewfinder

   “Sony's breakthrough VX1000 introduced a stunning but under-appreciated innovation, inexplicably missing from successor VX2000 and PDI50 products,” I wrote in 2002. “When a VX1000 is put in manual focus, the auto-focus sensing circuit remains active and informs the user via a little pointing indicator in the upper viewfinder whether the camcorder agrees with the user's focus — and in which direction the user should adjust focus if not in agreement.”

   This focusing aid in the DCR-VX1000 was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sony created it because there was some concern in 1995 that the VX1000's color viewfinder might not be up to the task of fine focusing. Sound familiar? I suggested to Sony on several occasions that it be adapted to HDCAMs, particularly the F900. Oh well.

   The VX1000's focus indicator was interactive. As a subject moved, and you manually refocused to follow the subject, the indicator tracked your success. On many occasions I shot in murky light, where poor shadow detail in the viewfinder's LCD and reduced contrast in the VX1000's lens at wide aperture made it difficult to ascertain focus. Even though the VX1000's focusing circuit detects focus on the basis of contrast, the focus indicator nevertheless proved reliable. Repeatedly, over a period of years.

   For me, the VX1000's focus indicator combined of the best of manual and autofocusing. And we need it now more than ever.

   While the A1 viewfinder's count of 250,000 color pixels is 40 percent more than that of a VX1000 or PD150 or PD170 — 180,000 each — the HDV format (1080×1440) contains 4.5 times the pixels of DV (480×720), while the A1's CMOS sensor (1080×1920) itself creates six times.

   Houston, we have a problem. It's too easy, while shooting through the A1's viewfinder, to find yourself at the edge of minimum object distance even at widest focal length (5.1mm — not very wide for 1/3in. imager), and fail to realize your subject is slightly soft. It's too easy in a documentary situation to find yourself at the long end of JVC's HD100 16x Fujinon zoom, iris wide open, pulling focus on-the-fly, missing it and not realizing it until you review the tapes later.

   In lieu of feedback from an active VX1000-style focus indicator, new HDV camcorders provide the convention of a peaking circuit to “enhance” or harden the edges of viewfinder detail. Although there are some intriguing departures.

   The A1, in fact, supplements manual focusing with three techniques: 1) Autofocus, which is awfully good in this camcorder, perhaps to compensate for a 2.7in. touchscreen LCD with only 123,200 pixels; 2) Color peaking for white, red, or yellow contours — your choice — around fine detail when focus is achieved (adding extra cartoonishness to reality); and 3) Expanded Focus to magnify the image 2X at the press of a button. Unfortunately, Expanded Focus, which appears also in the Z1, functions only when the camera is not recording — in other words, not when you need it most.

   JVC's HD100, with interchangeable mechanical lenses, offers a choice of either conventional peaking or Focus Assist, JVC's version of color peaking in blue, red, or green. Canon's XL H1 offers conventional peaking plus center-weighted autofocus when a Canon autofocus zoom is used. Like Sony, its EVF Magnifying button magnifies the image 2X but does not function during recording.

   Focus Assist in Panasonic's HVX200 easily wins this round. For checking focus, it magnifies the viewfinder image in standby and also during recording. The recorded image, of course, is not affected. Occasional use of image magnification combined with peaking to touch up focus while shooting could prove quite effective. (For more on this feature of the HVX200, see page #52 of this issue.)

   Let's not sniff at autofocus, by the way. Guess what was built into a Canon 6.7-127mm (19X) zoom featured on Sony's new 1/2in. three-CCD PDW-F330 at IBC?


4. Waveform display in viewfinder or viewing screen

   As I asked four years ago, “We have audio level indicators in the viewfinder of our sophisticated digital signal processing camcorders, why not video?”

   You ask, “Isn't that what zebras do?”

   Imagine, instead of a viewfinder audio scale, an indicator lamp that lights when audio exceeds -20dBfs. This is comparable to a low zebra value for pale skin tone. When lit, how would you know by what amount the signal exceeded -20dBfs?

   Now imagine an indicator lamp that lights only when audio exceeds 0dBfs. This is comparable to zebras at 100 units. The problem is, when lit, part of the signal has already been clipped or distorted.

   Zebras flag parts of an image that have topped a certain signal value. They tell us very little else. Moreover, zebras are like seeing spots before your eyes — you can see past them but they interfere with clear vision. Dual zebras are twice as nice — not! Ever forget which zebra pattern is which, as you're darting around with the camcorder on your shoulder?

   Now imagine a waveform display superimposed over picture. It would function as a dynamic light meter, showing full-screen luminance values as normalized percentages on a scale from 0 to 100, with a button to toggle it on and off. That's all that's needed. Those who fear arcane engineering signals like synch, color burst, and setup needn't worry. That stuff doesn't exist in digital video.

   Combo picture/waveform displays are not unheard of. Panasonic's excellent 8.4in. LCD SD and HD monitor, the BT-LH900, has built-in waveform monitoring (16:9 mode only, for some reason). Astro's sleek, versatile WM-3004A-M 6in. and WM-3007 8in. LCD SD and HD waveform/vector scope monitors double nicely as picture monitors.

   Sony's A1 takes a baby step in the same direction, placing an active histogram in its viewfinder. Instantly familiar to anyone with a working knowledge of Photoshop's Levels dialog box, a histogram is a bar graph that plots luminance values, from blackest black to whitest white, along the horizontal axis, and pixel count along the vertical axis. For every image, it depicts the total number of pixels captured at each brightness level of the camcorder's dynamic range (exposure latitude), which indicates how image detail is distributed along the available tonal scale.

   Bravo, Sony! This is a terribly useful new tool. Although to be fair, nearly every digital still camera, from point-and-shoot to digital SLR, displays a histogram.


5. True SMPTE color bars from all camcorders

   Color bars mean only one thing: adjusting an analog signal. From the perspective of a digital camcorder, that means adjusting an analog display.

   CRT monitors and CRT viewfinders are the last gasps of analog technology in field production, but they're still very much with us. That's why SMPTE color bars are a given in broadcast camcorders. This is not so for MiniDV camcorders. In the 1990s, “full-field” (full height) non-SMPTE color bars were an undocumented feature in the Sony VX1000 and Canon XL 1, available only if you knew the secret simultaneous push of photo and record buttons. Coincidence? You decide. But why the subterfuge?

   Displaying these full-field color bars on a monitor, you could adjust color phase (hue) by eye, provided you knew precisely what NTSC yellow and magenta looked like. But what about brightness (black level), contrast (white level), and chroma (saturation)?

   Ever misjudge an exposure due to a dim monitor? Or an overly bright CRT viewfinder? (Which everyone knows you're not supposed to do.) To achieve proper display brightness and contrast by eye, without test equipment, SMPTE in 1978 introduced a split-field color bars standard called SMPTE ECR 1-1978 (updated as SMPTE EG 1-1990), which has withstood the test of time.

   A distinctive feature of ECR 1 is three short black-and-white bars — “blacker than black, black, and whiter than black” — grouped under the red bar. Called PLUGE bars (Picture LineUp Generating Equipment), they enable setting critical NTSC black levels by eye. After properly adjusting monitor brightness and contrast with PLUGE bars, only the “whiter than black” bar remains visible, and it's a hair lighter than absolute black. This simple eyeballing technique makes accurate monitor brightness in the field a snap.

   Here's a clue as to why MiniDV cameras avoided SMPTE color bars: While the American NTSC standard requires black level at 7.5 IRE units (called “setup” or sometimes “pedestal”), Japan's NTSC-J places black level at 0 IRE instead. NTSC devices manufactured in Japan for the North American market are expected, therefore, to add 7.5 IRE setup to analog output signals for proper blacks. (The IRE scale of 0-100 represents video amplitude or luminance. In American NTSC, a signal below 7.5 units is “blacker than black” and therefore invisible, deemed necessary in the 1950s to hide CRT retrace during blanking.)

   All component digital video, from CCIR 601 onward, has been created without 7.5 setup. So MiniDV camcorders quite properly record video with black at 0 IRE. It's what MiniDV camcorders did improperly that made them avoid SMPTE color bars with PLUGE — they output analog NTSC from their Y/C (S-Video) or composite connectors with no 7.5 IRE setup, with analog blacks set incorrectly at 0 IRE units. This includes most if not all prosumer DV camcorders sold in the United States.

   An NTSC professional monitor receiving this incorrect signal, expecting an analog signal with 7.5 setup, will reproduce a dark image with clipped blacks, since image detail below 7.5 units will be not be displayed.

   I don't wish to finger MiniDV camcorders alone. DVCAM decks like the Sony DSR-20 don't add setup in analog playout either. Nor do cheap Chinese-made DVD players. (Meanwhile, if you watch cable programming these days, you'll notice black levels all over the place.)

   Note that this issue doesn't concern displays with serial digital inputs like SDI, HD-SDI, DVI, or HDMI. These expect a digital video signal with black at 0 IRE. Digital ATSC broadcasting expects black at 0 IRE, too.

   But what if your digital video camcorder gets it wrong in the first place? You, my friend, have entered the fifth dimension, the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge: The Twilight Zone of analog NTSC in the digital millennium. (Rod Serling understands.)

   You have been undone by MiniDV and HDV camcorders from Sony and Panasonic — the Sony PD150, PD170, Z1, A1; and the Panasonic DVX100 series — that offer the erroneous choice of 0 IRE or 7.5 IRE setup for recording black level in DV. I repeat: There is NO NTSC 7.5 IRE setup in any digital video format.

   If you wrongly record DV with setup at 7.5, which makes black levels 7.5 percent too bright, then make a VHS dub through a device that correctly adds 7.5 setup to what it expects is a properly recorded digital signal, your blacks will appear noticeably washed-out.

   JVC gets it right, for one. The HDV HD100 adds 7.5 IRE setup only to downconverted 480/60i analog video signals available at the component or composite RCA connections. Sony's DSR-300 and DSR-500 and Panasonic's AJ-SDX900 get it right too. And Canon, to its credit, in 2001 introduced genuine split-field SMPTE bars to the MiniDV world in its XL1S upgrade (although XL1S variable IRE setup was questionable).

   To avoid washed-out blacks when shooting DV, DVCAM, or DVCPRO 25, set your PD150, PD170, Z1, A1, or DVX100 to “0 percent setup level” and leave it there permanently. If your camcorder does not add 7.5 setup to its analog output signal, adjust monitor brightness in the field by re-selecting the monitor's setup level, if it has this capability, to 0 IRE units. If not, raise brightness (black level). In either case, the SMPTE PLUGE bars should ALL be visible, including “blacker-than-black,” which should now itself be a hair lighter than absolute black.

   This is a kludge (that's a technical term), so check your results obtained this way by tape deck or NLE playback from a monitor properly matched to input, whether analog 7.5 setup or digital 0 setup. Careful scrutiny of PLUGE bars will also reveal to what degree the color LCD viewfinder and LCD flip-out screen are crushing blacks. (They all do.)

   In the be-careful-what-you-wish-for department: Sony's Z1 and A1 provide two sets of 16:9 color bars, labeled TYPE 1 and TYPE 2. The first is a 16:9 stretched version of split-field SMPTE. (In the Z1, when 60i is switched to 50i, do these become EBU bars with 100 percent white instead of SMPTE with 75 percent white, as JVC's HD100 correctly manages to do?)

   Regarding TYPE 2, how much effort would it be for Sony to identify, much less explain the use of, this novel pattern, unfamiliar to the preponderance of camera operators with its extra bars, color patches, and grayscales?

   I'll save you the research. These are new “multi-format” HD/SD color bars designed by Japan's Association of Radio Industry and Businesses (ARIB) several years ago and offered to SMPTE in 2002. They are known as SMPTE RP 219-2002 (Recommended Practice) as well as ARIB STD-B28. Uniquely, they originate as an HD signal — you'll see these babies only from HD camcorders — but are designed to be downconverted to SD with an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 4:3.

   If you crop the 40 percent luminance gray bars from either side, you get 4:3 color bars that might be mistaken for conventional split-screen SMPTE if not for a horizontal grayscale ramp and new arrangement of white, gray, and black patches. PLUGE has been replaced by small +2 percent and +4 percent “whiter than black” bars to refine black level adjustment.

   Why make so much fuss over color bars? Say what you will, but we work in a world that forces us to make image quality assessments by picture monitor, viewing screen, even color viewfinder. Not all of us possess waveform monitors or vectorscopes — see number four above — or the resources to hire video engineers, controllers, shaders, or DITs (digital imaging technicians). Since seeing is believing — we're visual animals who can't ignore what we experience with our eyes — picture displays must be as trustworthy as possible, be they CRT, backlit LCD, reflective LCD (like Sony's Z1), plasma, OLED, SED, or what have you.

   While these varied technologies will never produce identical results, we nevertheless need basic confidence that color, brightness, and contrast are functionally close to what the camcorder is actually capturing. Is that too much to ask?


6. Native 16:9 chips in 1/3in. CCD camcorders

   Check.

7. FireWire outputs on all camcorders or portable downconverters

   “There isn't an HDCAM user on the planet who wouldn't treasure this,” I wrote four years ago.

   Final Cut Pro and Avid Xpress DV were then invading laptops. What I meant was, simultaneous MiniDV copies of HDCAM originals would be immensely helpful for “dailies,” continuity, to generate copies for various parties, do rough edits on the set, and even offline editing.

   What a difference four years make. HDV camcorders from Sony, JVC, and Canon, and Panasonic's DVCPRO HD HVX200 have MiniDV mechanisms for internal downconversion and capture of HD to DV, DVCAM, or DVCPRO 25. All have built-in FireWire I/O for streaming HDV or DV to portable hard disk recorders like Focus Enhancements' FireStore or Shining Technology's upcoming CitiDISK HDV. Sony's Z1 and A1 even simultaneously capture HDV and output downconverted DV via FireWire. The bandwidth of FireWire (IEEE-1394), it needn't be pointed out, is the very raison d'etre of HDV.

   As for HDCAM, there have since been handfuls of portable field HD-SDI downconverters from Miranda, Evertz, AJA, Astro, Doremi, and others. Some downconvert to SDI, others to analog component, composite, and lately DVI, for monitoring from computer displays. The original Miranda DVC-800 and subsequent DVC-802/822 HD downconverter and DV encoder, which piggyback on an HDCAM, fulfill my original wish 100 percent.

   This trend — multiple codecs, multiple digital I/O — is accelerating. A few months ago, Canon's HDV entry, the XL H1, surprised the industry with HD-SDI. JVC's forthcoming GY-HD7000, a full-sized three-CMOS HD camcorder with MPEG-2 codecs for HDV-1 and HDV-2, also has both FireWire and HD-SDI.

   Sony's standard-def PDW-530 XDCAM features switchable MPEG-2/DVCAM codecs with iLink (FireWire) and optional SDI. Similar dual MPEG-2/DVCAM codecs are found in the PDW-F330 XDCAM HD, although its digital I/O is iLink only.

   Grass Valley has gone furthest in this, announcing a full-sized, CCD, IT-based SD/HD camcorder called Infinity. This camcorder boasts 1080i 60/50, 720p 60/50, 480i/60, and 576i/50 from codecs including DV 25 at both 4:1:1 and 4:2:0 (DVCAM, DVCPRO, DV), JPEG2000 for 10-bit HD, and optional MPEG-2 for I-frame and long-GOP SD and HD at assorted data rates.

   Infinity's I/O includes Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, HDMI for monitoring, and — count 'em — three USB 2.0 connectors. That's in addition to SDI, HD-SDI, and analog composite. Internal storage includes an internal RAM cache, off-the-shelf consumer compact flash memory, a new consumer 35GB 2.5in. disk cartridge from Iomega called REV, and a professional version upgraded to Grass Valley's specs called REV PRO. File formats are MXF-based.

   Would you believe $20,000? Grass Valley's parent Thomson just bought Canopus, so HDV can't be far from sight either. Buckle those seatbelts.



Using an Anton Bauer battery on JVC’s HDV GY-HD100 helps to balance the low- profile camcorder.
—D.O.

8. Flip-out screens on all camcorders, including HDCAMs

   HDCAMs lose here, but Sony's shiny new PDW-F330 XDCAM HD (branded CineAlta despite 1/2in. CCDs) sports a bright, colorful 3.5in. 16:9 LCD.

   HDV camcorders, with shrinking real estate for buttons and switches, have strongly embraced LCDs as external menu displays, with the slight exception of Canon's XL H1, which tucks a lone 2.4in. 16:9 LCD under the eyepiece.

   Let's face it. As camcorder capabilities explode, there's no other way to organize settings than to deploy extensive menus. (Remember how simple MacWrite was in 1986, compared to Microsoft Word today?) There are more than 150 pages of setup menus in the PDW-530 XDCAM alone.

   For example, Sony has transformed the petite A1's flip-out LCD into a full-fledged graphical user interface, complete with PDA-like touchscreen control and animated icons, akin to the dock in Apple OS X.

   This sets the stage for wondrous innovations — Spot Focus, for one. With the A1 in manual focus, you touch a point on the LCD where you want the focus to shift, and the A1 does it. It's as simple as that. The Spot Meter feature works similarly. With the A1 in manual exposure, touch an object on the LCD for which you want to adjust exposure — back-lit face, for example — and a miniature sliding exposure scale appears at the bottom. You slide it up and down with your fingertip, like a kid finger painting.



Sony’s XDCAM HD, which debuts at NAB, fills the niche between Sony’s entry-level HDV format and the high-end HDCAM and HDCAM SR formats. Recording 1080i video onto Professional Disc (PFD-23) media, the camcorder offers three data recording rates: 18Mbps, 25Mbps, and 35Mbps.
—D.O.

9. At-a-glance display of camera setup in flip-out screen

   “A flip-out screen folded back against a camcorder could constantly display pertinent data during camera operation, including: frame rate, timebase, interlace/progressive mode, shutter speed, gain, etc.,” I wrote in my 2002 wish list. “This would immeasurably aid assistant cam-erapersons and others… Certainly it could also help alleviate present-day clutter in the viewfinder.”

   In fact, Grass Valley is calling Infinity's LCD touchscreen a “built-in PDA.” As described above, Sony's little A1 beat Grass Valley to it.

   What I wished for four years ago was a well-designed external display of basic camera parameters. I wasn't imaginative enough to envision the LCD as Palm Pilot, as the camcorder's main GUI. But this is an exciting idea whose time has come.

   Ikegami's HDN-X10 Editcam HD also features a touchscreen GUI.

   In the meantime, could manufacturers figure out a way for us to split menu functions and viewfinder indicators between viewfinder and LCD? If my assistant could keep track of battery level, audio sampling frequency, timecode, focusing distance, etc., on the LCD, would I need them in the viewfinder?



Despite a small footprint, Sony’s HVR-A1U offers an advanced single CMOS sensor, a Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* zoom lens and SMPTE timecode. Its 250,000 pixel color viewfinder introduces an active histogram as an aid to judging exposure.
—D.O.

10. Total control and display of all parameters and functions via remote laptop

    From 2002: “FireWire or USB… Bluetooth… Mac AND Windows, perhaps Palm OS and Windows CE too. But TOTAL remote control. …perhaps a universally standardized interface (Java anyone?) and camcorder data protocol (Hey, a new three-letter acronym!) from SMPTE that could control most common functions. Maybe even an open-standards effort that outsiders could contribute to; many professional camcorder devotees have advanced programming skills… Remember, folks, camcorders are image computers. They can do anything computers can do.”

    OK, scratch Palm OS. But remember that line from South Pacific: “If you don't have a dream, how're you gonna have a dream come true?”

    From Sony you can now download a demo version of BZP-FR500, a Windows program for setting scene file parameters in the PDW-530 XDCAM. (Available at sonybiz.net.)

    You'll need a Sony-supplied cable that goes from the computer's RS-232 serial port to the PDW-530's remote connector at the rear. Sony says BZP-FR500 “allows realtime control of the creative and operating parameters, without risk” and that resulting setup files can be shared between cameras. If you like the demo, Sony will sell you the dongle.

    I think camcorder companies should aggressively develop such software and give it away free, like Apple gives away iTunes to sell iPods.

    Canon, too, is selling Windows-based camera control software for its XL H1 — $600 a pop — but it comes breathtakingly close to fulfilling my wish. Called Console, it connects a laptop to the XL H1 via FireWire and controls all camera, lens, and recorder functions, plus all image parameters. Console also supports direct capture of HDV or DV to the computer's hard drive, and if that's not enough, it provides active waveform and vectorscope displays. Canon even promises a Mac OS X version by NAB.

Looking back, looking forward

It's gratifying to be able to cross off all items from my 2002 wish list, except perhaps numbers three and four, a focus confidence indicator and waveform display in the viewfinder. Although, as discussed, progress is being made in those areas.

Re-reading my 2002 wish list above, I'm struck that seven of 10 have to do with viewing, evaluating, or controlling the image. In other words, cinematography, the crafting of motion pictures.

When I began the first list in 1989, codecs were hardly on the radar screen. Now there's compression, storage, file-based transfer, and metadata. Also, progressive scanning, multiple frame rates, hard disk drive recording, P2, compact flash memory, CMOS, and consumer HDV.

Time to start a new wish list.

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